Bob Greenberger

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September 01, 2004

Thoughts

I’ll be off to Boston tomorrow morning and since I don’t have a laptop, communication will be hit or miss. A hit if I can find a terminal, a miss if I don’t. With that in mind, some odds and ends…

Politics

With all the focus on the GOP convention and its protestors, I find the media coverage fairly uninteresting. I also find the message from both the Democrats and GOP to be way too negative. Both sides are hell-bent on tearing down the other guy that neither one is clearly making their case for what they will do given four years of power. President Bush came to the office making a certain number of statements and promises, some were kept, many were not. Tomorrow night, I hope he can state which of those unkept promises are still on the agenda.

John Kerry, on the other hand, needs to clearly state what he sees as the top goals of his would-be administration. I’m tired of hearing how he’s a war vet. I got it. What will he do for education, the environment, the space program, etc.? I have no clue – he’s not saying much. And what he does say is so overly nuanced we’re nodding off before he can make a point.

The 6% of undecided voters may very well make up their minds when they watch the debates. The plainspoken Bush has the edge going into the three meetings, so Kerry has to make sure he’s ready with concise responses.

Speaking of the media, the San Francisco Bay Guardian today has an interesting piece on the top ten stories not being covered by the media. Check this out.

Jimmy Doohan

Jimmy got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame yesterday. Cheers to him. Sure, the majority of his acting career has hinged on Star Trek, but his other credentials certainly help make the case.

I’ve spoken to Jimmy on and off since meeting him at the original Committee conventions of the 1970s. We haven’t chatted in a number of years and our last conversation was all about the pleasures of vacation via motorhome. But, I’ll tell you, he’s always been a convivial guy and a great storyteller. He enthralled an auditorium full of people while I was at college, most of whom had no clue of his skills.

Age is catching up to the cast. I was shocked to see that Walter Koenig is 67 and George Takei is 64 and Nichelle Nichols is 70. With William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy both in their 70s, there’s no point in trying to revive the franchise with these guys. Their appeal is to a certain segment of the audience, an aging segment at that. If they want something to follow Enterprise they need to look forward.

Baseball

I’m reading a collection called Murderer’s Row. As edited by Otto Penzler, it features stories by the likes of Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Mike Lupica, and Elmore Leonard. It’s a fun, breezy read; perfect as the baseball season itself starts to heat up into the final pennant races. There were two stories, back to back, that chose to pick on my beloved, beleaguered Mets, proving they can’t catch respect anywhere, even in fiction. I was also amused by one story that hinged on rotisserie baseball (my Final Frontiersmen remain mired in second with little hope of the lead).

And hey, how about those Yankees? Last night’s game must have felt like a mystery to them. To suddenly go from a 10 game lead to a 3 game lead in a mere two weeks has to be of some concern. Deb would like to see them fail to make the playoffs. I think they’ll get that far, but unless something changes, they won’t be winning any World Championships this year.

Posted by Bob Greenberger at September 1, 2004 10:54 AM

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Posted by: gormuu at September 2, 2004 09:47 AM